Xbox Best of E3 Awards

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By IGN

We'll argue about how well Microsoft did against Nintendo and Sony at a later date, but it's pretty clear that Microsoft put a lot of high quality, original games on display. But titles were of higher quality than others and somebody has to sort out the great games from the $@%#*! great games. That's where we come in.

The IGN Xbox Best of E3 Awards are what you get after hours of debate, thoughtful interpretation and back-stabbing to determine the best of the best. E3 is a big show and it's impossible to see everything and everybody but the best stuff always has a way of grabbing your attention no matter what. After sitting through countless demonstrations intended for know-nothing mainstream journalists ("This squirrel/sponge/little girl/battle robot is a character with real attitude!") and elbowing bespectacled freelancers for mycrappyvideogamewebsite.com we go the goods on the elite Xbox games you need to know about. For 24 hours, all of the hottest games for the next 18 months were there to be touched and appreciated. But when it was over, they all disappear as if they never existed. Good for you and us, we kept notes.

We can tell you right now that Halo 2 dominated the show and so is featured prominently in our awards lineup. What can we say, Bungie's game is doing so many things well that it was a contender in nearly every category except Best Sports game. Warthog racing isn't a standalone game yet, but when it is maybe it'll join the ranks of great and above-average games, like the ones below, that were once winners of an IGN Xbox Best of E3 Award.

The mild disappointment we felt when we found out T.H.U.G. wasn't a 50 Cent robot assassin simulator was quickly replaced by a feeling of elation at the fact that Tony Hawk is hopping of his skateboard and taking the videogame world head-on. For some reason your IGN editors weren't allowed to see the playable version of Underground that many magazine editors were shown. But rest assured we got at least twice as much information and understanding out of repeated viewings of the trailer so we'll still be the ones who will make you understand what THUG is all about.

The trailer had to be great because it's such a totally different game under the same powerful franchise name. Thanks to the short video clip we know you can run, climb, put your face in the game, drive cars and build your own city in Tony Hawk Underground. We'll know why and how later this year.

Everything in Halo 2 is going to shine with pretty bloom lighting. Even the individual particles of dust that collect on the bottom of Master Chief's boots will glow with soft reflected light. Seriously though, now that there's uncanny similarity between the outdoor environments of several Microsoft Game Studios titles (see Crimson Skies, Halo, Brute Force, MechAssault), the developers at Bungie are distancing themselves from the crowd with an all new graphics system for Halo 2. The updated graphics are so sharp, you'll be able to see all four segments of an elite's jaw moving, the Japanese script on the barrel of Chief's assault rifle and wear on the tires of the Warthog in Halo 2. Using the game engine to produce the game's cinemas means there's no dropoff in visual quality and things will flow together seamlessly.

The quick zooming camera that switches between third and first person as you hop into and out of vehicles is being applied in new ways now that Chief can man mounted defense cannons and Ghost-jack Covenant forces. Now if we can only see what the flamethrower will look like.

We didn't want to pick an obvious surprise of E3 like "Fran was mobbed by drooling fans.... including girls this time!" because that's not the kind of thing we want to get into now that E3 is over. No, we simply thought about what truly caught us off guard at the show. When we realized Fable --a veteran of many, many an E3 now-- actually had a co-op mode that may include up to four players when all is said and done, we knew there could be no other choice. We thought we knew all there was to know about the title formerly known as Project Ego, we just wanted to finally get our hands on a decent playable version. When Peter Molyneux casually told us about the multiplayer function and how it would work using memory units to move your buddy's hero into your game, we were floored. When he told us about the hero/sidekick system and how you and your buddy can switch roles on the fly and how each of your heroes will be fully powered up and functional in the game world, we were speechless. This is a good way to convince us that this will be the greatest RPG of all time TM.

Rather than simply trying to make Halo better, we're convinced that Bungie went into Halo 2 attempting to stretch the Xbox hardware to its limit first and foremost and whatever ends up left over would be the greatest Xbox game ever. You can steal vehicles, exchange weapons with NPCs, damage and manipulate objects in the environment and throw melee combos and you know that's not even the coolest stuff yet. We haven't even mentioned the excellent audio components and online gameplay because our brains can not handle that level of intense greatness in one sitting. It seems the Xbox has been holding out on us all this time. But Bungie will make it pay. Oh yes, they'll all pay.

No game has ever done what Full Spectrum Warrior is attempting to do. Think of it as an extremely stripped down version of chess where you get to micromanage what your pawns are capable of. You control the soldiers of FSW as independent fire teams of four or five guys each. While you can select and move individual troops, there's a limit to how far they can be moved away from their teammates. You're not telling them when to fire at enemies, you're setting them up to have every advantage when they do encounter enemies. You have to follow Army procedure from beginning to end so when things are frantic and dangerous on screen, you're probably not doing so well. This is what Full Spectrum Warrior has to offer.

Perhaps the greatest innovation is that it's not a game trying to live up to real life "army man" tactics. It's a training program designed for the US Army that's being converted to a videogame for Xbox owners everywhere. We hear the Xbox Live component will be co-operative multiplayer.

We wanted to keep this category limited to games most likely coming out in 2003. Plus as great as Halo 2 surely will be, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is going to offer a unique online experience when compared to, say, a first person shooter. Crimson Skies has aircraft with big machine guns flying all around gorgeous environments. It's a formula that worked well with MechAssault --the FASA games gotta stick together-- but the sky's the limit with all of the freedom and space we'll be getting in CS. Plus with gametypes like Capture the Flag built into the original, the downloadable content for Crimson Skies could be something quite nice. Plus you'll get to call out targets at 1 o'clock high like you were Tom Cruise or something, making the Voice Communicator at least 28% cooler.

Few people were expecting such great things from Prince of Persia, but its awesome E3 showing put everyone on notice: Ubi Soft is serious about dominating the video game market. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, based on the classic side-scroller, is the true Matrix game. Run along walls, slow time, and kick the crap out of endless scores of challenging enemies with some of the most intuitive controls and interesting puzzles seen in a next-gen game. PoP is stunning in its current state, but Ubi Soft notes the lighting isn't finished, meaning this one will look even better upon release. No game at E3 had more cool than this one and PoP did exactly what every E3 game needs to -- It made us want more.

The current best game on Xbox is going to look about as advanced as a Rubik's Cube when its sequel, Halo 2, hits store shelves in 2004. Bungie revealed its upcoming shooter at E3 with an eight-minute demo that dropped every jaw in the theatre. Halo 2 sees Master Chief trying to save the Earth from a Covenant invasion. The graphics are unparalleled on Xbox, but what really shook the floor were the gameplay additions. Showing off just a small taste of the new coolness, we witnessed Master Chief swap guns with a soldier, go double-fisted with uzis, hop in the gunner seat of a Warthog, jack a Covenant Ghost, and square off against half a dozen elites. And that was just from an early level. There's no doubting this is the shooter of the show and will likely outdo the original Halo in every respect.

Kudos to Microsoft for improving on the original Project Gotham Racing. The sequel made its hands-on debut at E3 with eight-player Xbox Live support, so-good-it-must-be-real graphics, and some of the fastest cars to ever grace the virtual road. Though there were only four cities and ten cars in the E3 demo, PGR 2 will feature more than double of both when it ships this fall. Not only was the online play silky smooth, but the game itself managed the most detailed cities and cars imaginable. Along with the graphic bump, PGR 2 includes a major upgrade to the Kudos system. Now gamers are rewarded for pulling all kinds of slick driving stunts on the road. Compete online and post your scores on Xbox Live. Definitely the slickest racer on the show floor.

By now everyone knows one of IGNXbox's most anticipated games is a little diddy called Fable. Spear-headed by brothers Dene and Simon Carter, Fable tells the story of a young boy who comes home to find his parents dead and his dog nailed to the front door. From there, this orphan is in your full control. How you play determines what type of hero he becomes, but more importantly it affects all of the people around you. Do heroic deeds and villagers will sing songs about your greatness. Run away like a coward and they'll mock you. What shocked us at E3 was learning that Fable had co-op capabilities. Take your hero and put them in your friend's game and help one another out. It's just another piece added to this amazing, dynamic puzzle. Clearly Fable and Halo 2 will be battling it out for game of the year 2004.

Last year, NFL 2K3 earned the spotlight. The year, EA's Madden has taken so many big steps forward that Sega's superb gridiron game isn't even a consideration for this award. Madden may not have online capabilities on Xbox, but it has so many more improvements that a lack of online play is only a minor nuisance. New run and passing play cameras act to help fake out opponents on draw and play action passes and the use of the right thumbstick to motion receivers during a passing play adds some extra depths. But what's got us buzzing is the Football Mogul-style team control, where you have a direct effect on your team's budget by pricing food, seats, and novelty foam hands. Plus, you can move your team and design your own stadium. This may be the one Madden to rule them all.

Was there ever any doubt? Halo 2 was by far the most impressive game shown on Xbox at E3. From the drop-dead gorgeous graphics to the booming sound to the new gameplay additions, Halo 2 did the unthinkable -- It outdid our expectations. Already, the original Halo is looking like a fossil from a bygone gaming era. In just eight minutes time, Bungie made every Xbox game of 2003 look like a yawner. If the new gameplay shown in those eight minutes was all Halo 2 had to offer, we'd be more than happy, but that's only a small sampling of what we can expect. There is no greater game released on Xbox than Halo and there's no more highly-anticipated game than Halo 2. Bungie did what it had to this E3 -- The first-party developer proved Halo 2 was going to outdo the original in every aspect and that the end result would be well worth the wait.